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This isn't as bad as I feared from the two singles I listened to pre-album; definitely not better than Youth Novels or I Never Learn, but there are some solid moments. I'm probably feeling the title track, Utopia and Bad Woman the most on first listen (the bridge of Bad Woman was the standout moment when I played the album through). Deep End grew on me, too (Hard Rain not so much).

I thought this was interesting, from an interview with Entertainment Weekly:

It’s fascinating that Skrillex on “Two Nights” and Ali Payami on “Last Piece,” who are known for pop and dance tracks, are doing much subtler work here. Was it challenging to marry your style with theirs and retain the core of what you do? Because Ali just came off working with Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Ariana Grande.

If you talk to him he’d probably say it was maybe a difficult experience working with me because I’d take back the files and change the song! This is not necessarily how he wanted it to sound. This is how I made it sound. The thing with Skrillex, there was a version [of “Two Nights”] with drops and all kinds of things, and I took away quite a lot and just kept things I thought were interesting. Both of them probably feel like… I destroyed the track!

So, at first, there were instances where they were trying to apply their style to yours?

In the collaboration they do what they do and I do what I do, and then it’s all about how I can bring that into my world. And that was for the whole record. I’d done bits and pieces with a lot of different people, but then I, in the end, pulled back and sat with [executive producer] Malay, with a mixer, and took away things, added things, kind of like how I do always on my records. I’m very hands-on and I sit in the room like, “Tweak this, tune this, let’s take away this…” I start with a big collage and I edit it all together in the end.

You can sort of hear that struggle in the final tracks; there are elements of contemporary pop but not really a full commitment to that direction (to the album's benefit, IMHO, but sometimes the conflict comes through).

Bummed to see a little Hard Rain hate. It’s easily my favorite song on the record and it set my expectations impossibly high when it came out. I didn’t say this before but I’ve thought it since I first heard it, it really reminds me of “22 (over soon)” by Bon Iver as an opener. A sustained pitch in the background throughout the whole thing, a repeated mantra (Bon Iver’s being “It might be over soon” and Lykke’s being the hard rain line), the vocoder harmonies. Just the whole vibe of it.

Anyways, I do actually really like the record. How could I not like a record that’s named after my entire aesthetic? It’s very much a mood album, and while individual moments might not be as strong, the album as a whole definitely lives up to the title. I love Hard Rain, Deep End, Jaguars in the Air, So Sad So Sexy, and Better Alone best. Jaguars borders on lol but in a way that’s super catchy and fun. Better Alone is just gorgeously produced and I think is the best single song on the record as a summation of what it’s about.